Stride for Stride
by monkaholic
Summary: Uther and Morgana. Dungeon sex. Battle of wills. Regret. All that good stuff.


**Author's Note:** Very slight spoilers for To Kill a King.

**Warnings:** There are restraints, but it's very tame, to be honest.

* * *

"Have you learned your lesson yet, child?" She was slack against the wall, her head hanging down and her eyes blank as she stared at the floor. Her hair was a mess of tangles and straw. She acted as if she didn't hear him, and that only riled him more. He would not be dismissed. He was her king. If she did not have respect for him, she at least needed to learn respect for the title. He held his head a little higher as he walked to her, and when he kicked her foot, she instantly looked at him with a cold loathing that he had only ever seen in the eyes of his enemies on the battlefield. It shook his resolve for only a second, and he made an extra effort to harden his face as he ground out slowly, "I said, have you learned your lesson?"

Her jaw clenched and he noticed the quickening in the rise and fall of her chest, the muscles in her throat doing a tantalizing dance, and then she viciously spat in his face and sent him reeling backwards.

"Damn it, Morgana!" he yelled, his eyes stinging. He wiped at his face with his sleeve, and if not for his utter shock at Morgana acting like a common criminal, he wouldn't have thought twice about striking her. And then he heard the cackling. It was cruel. Full of despair. Full of spite. He slowly pulled his arm away from his eyes and he stared in horror at the image before him. She had gone mad, he was sure of it. He backed away from her, feeling his way to the door, unable to look away from her.

"What's the matter, Uther Pendragon? Afraid of what you've created?"

This made him stop. "I had no part in this… this _madness_, Morgana. I simply sought to teach you a lesson."

She let out a bitter laugh. "And that you have. You are a cold man. Not even a man. A beast. No more deserving of respect than a rat."

In an instant he was in front of her and yanking her up by her hair. He took satisfaction in the small gasp that she let out. Whether it was in pain or fear he wasn't certain. He held her body up against his own, his hand still firmly gripping her hair while the other one pressed into her arm. Her eyes were wild, defiant, daring him to do his worst, and it somehow made her more exquisite than ever. He silently cursed her beauty and slammed her against the wall. She let out a moan, this time most certainly in pain, and it made him smile.

"Having fun?" Morgana asked, disgust covering her features, her breath strained from his body pinning her against the wall.

Uther looked down at her exposed throat and moved a gloved hand to stroke it, then he looked back into her eyes and whispered almost tenderly, "You have no idea."

Her eyebrows drew together in confusion, her eyes dropping to his lips and quickly back up to his own gaze. He grunted as she tried to push him away, and it only resulted in him roughly taking her chained wrists and pinning them above her head, his breathing labored from the struggle. He wasn't quite sure what his intentions were as he laid his forehead on hers and closed his eyes. He was torn between wanting to show her the beast that she thought he was, and wanting to prove to her that he was a man, as tender and merciful as any other. He grinned slightly at the effect of her breath tickling his neck. It had been too long since he'd been this close to a woman. Despite the stench of dungeon on her, he could still catch a hint of lavender in her hair.

Slowly, with one hand still pinning her wrists to the wall, he moved his other hand to her waist and started inching the skirts of her dress up. He placed a gentle kiss on her nose and opened his eyes, expecting to be met with an angry fury, but he instead found Morgana with her eyes closed and her breathing hitched. He placed a chaste kiss on her lips, releasing her wrists. She opened her eyes and looked at him questioningly, the slight haze in them giving him a thrill.

He held her bunched skirts up with one hand while he raised the other to his mouth and removed his glove with his teeth, his eyes never leaving hers. Discarding the glove to the ground, he reached back down to her waist, his fingers tingling as he lightly brushed his hand across her hair, the knowledge that he was the first to touch her there somehow making it all the more exciting. He watched her face, waiting for her to say no, to stop him. And he would have stopped. Despite her recent ramblings, he was not a monster. He cared about her well-being, even when he was angry with her. It frustrated him to no end. When she met his eyes with encouragement rather than protest, he moved his fingers lower, petting her just above the point that he knew would give her the greatest pleasure. He felt her heart beat increase against his chest, watched her face strain with an anticipation of something that she wasn't quite sure of. It had been so long since he's had the upper hand with her. She's matched him stride for stride practically from the day that she had arrived at his castle, despite her lack of experience in the world. The very fact that he was leading her in this made him hard in an instant. He groaned as his hardness pushed against her thigh, and he finally brushed a finger across her nub. She let out a gasp as he began to massage it, her eyes drifting closed, and he found the way that she was biting her lower lip oddly enticing.

He slipped a finger into her hole as he leaned down to taste her neck. He didn't realize how much he had longed to trace her collar bone with his tongue until that very moment. God, she was delicious. She moaned as he slipped another finger into her, and then she grabbed onto his hair, her chains rattling with the motion. He smiled against her skin, his hardness getting more difficult to contain as she drew him to her mouth for a kiss. A long, experimental kiss, and for some reason he didn't mind letting her take the reigns. But only for a moment. It was clear she had no experience with a kiss in the heat of passion, so he endeavored to show her how to do it properly. He caressed her lower lip with his tongue, encouraging her to open her mouth to him. She was stubborn at first, never one to listen to him, even in a moment like this. He chuckled against her lips, prodding a little harder with his tongue. He felt her sigh and give in, and then, as she does with everything else, she matched his explorations with a vigor equal to his, and as she clutched him closer she rubbed her leg against his hardness, making him groan. He gently bit her lower lip as his free hand moved to her breast. She sighed against him, this time in pleasure. He squeezed, his fingers capturing a hard nipple through the material of her dress. He broke away from her lips and quickly exposed her breast, no longer able to keep up the slow pace. He admiringly brushed a gloved hand across her nipple, delighting in the moan that she emitted. His mouth covered her breast, his tongue eager. She gripped his hair harder as he slipped another finger into her, his thumb massaging her nub. She wouldn't be able to hold on much longer.

He released her breast and stopped his ministrations, and he looked into her face. When she opened her eyes, her brows drawing together in confusion and frustration once again, he decided that he wanted to hear her first cry of pleasure while he was inside of her. He undid his belt and released his hardness, and he gasped as her hand grabbed his shaft. He hadn't been expecting that, and as he looked at Morgana's face, he saw fascination in her eyes. This only increased his pleasure, as did the slow stroking she was doing. "Morgana…" he pleaded, knowing that if he waited much longer he'd explode before he had initially planned to. Morgana looked up at him with an apology, and possibly some satisfaction. He groaned in both pleasure and irritation, and he quickly hoisted her up against the wall, her legs naturally wrapping around his waist as he quickly slipped inside of her. He silenced her scream with a kiss as he felt his skin break where her nails dug into his neck. When he pulled away, he saw the fury in her eyes that he had expected to see earlier. "I am sorry," he whispered, and kissed her forehead. She closed her eyes and turned her head, a tear sliding down her cheek from the pain. He kissed it, the salt strong on his lips. "I am sorry, Morgana, truly. But it will only last a minute." He forced her to turn her head to him and look him in the eye. "Trust me." When she roughly looked away again, he started to move within her, slowly, one arm using the wall as an anchor while he held her in his other arm. He watched her eyes flutter closed against her will as he moved back and forth. Careful, precise movements. He was straining, but he wanted to erase her memory of the pain. He wanted to bring her the pleasure that no man has ever done before. She let out an involuntary moan and her hands snaked back into his hair, bringing his focus back to her eyes. She was looking at him with desire, with anger, and perhaps a touch of hate. It wasn't what he had wanted, and his frustration made him quicken his pace, made him thrust a little harder, made him want to hurt her just a little. She pulled him to her for a hard kiss, one that would leave their lips bruised. She broke away and cried out his name after one particularly hard thrust and he felt her pulsating around him, felt her pulling his hair so hard that he thought she'd leave him bald. He gave her one final thrust and his release came, his arm going slack against the wall as he fell to his knees with her legs still wrapped around him. She clutched him to her as she came down from her high, and her hair tickled his nose as he tried to catch his breath against her neck.

When the dungeon fell silent, Morgana released her grip on him and pushed him away. When he tried to kiss her forehead as he pulled out of her, she turned away from him. He sighed and stood up to fix his pants and redo his belt. Morgana still wouldn't look at him as she fixed her dress, the top ripped from his overzealousness in getting to her breast. He looked down at his boot, trying to think of something to say. He was clueless as to what was running through her head, and he had no idea how to fix whatever they had just broken. He wasn't even sure if she wanted him to fix it. He moved toward her and knelt down, reaching out a hand to stroke her hair, but she roughly slapped his arm away, still refusing to look at him. He sighed and turned his head, spotting his glove and picking it up. He walked to the door and paused, turning back to Morgana, opening his mouth but finding no words. He felt a pang in his chest as he turned back around and left the cell, knowing that he and Morgana had finally crossed a line that shouldn't have even been within their sight.


End file.
